Nerds That Geek Movie Review – ‘Resident Evil: Retribution’

Written by Scott Edwards

​Finding out quickly that the Arcadia is not a ship that anyone wants to be on, Alice and her group are forced to fight harder since the Umbrella Corporation has unleashed hell once again. But being outnumbered and outgunned, the survivors have little chance of surviving as the ship goes up in flames and Alice has been retrieved by Umbrella once again and they want to know what her motives are. Being kept in her cell and being questioned by her old friend Jill and punished when not answering, a computer hack takes down the complex for two minutes. Getting some clothes to wear, Alice makes her way out of her cell and finds herself on the streets of Tokyo. Being able to find some weapons and hearing a voice saying ‘simulation active’, she finds herself in a war with the undead, but this time there is a chance for escape as doors continue to open up to take her to safety.
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Getting access to the central control hub of the Hive, Alice is greeted by Ada Wong, a top operative of the Umbrella Corporation and she finds out that Ada is working against the company as well. But her true savior is Albert Wesker who was able to hack the systems and free Alice from the Red Queen. Finding out that Umbrella is trying something new now that the Red Queen has become focused on killing all of humanity, they need Alice back and fighting with them to save the last of mankind. With an extraction team on their way to free the two women, it is only a matter of time before they are able to see the light of day again, but they have to continue to move throughout the maze of simulations.

Fighting their way through New York, Ada and Alice eventually find themselves in a suburban setting and when Alice notices movement in one of the houses, she is forced to investigate. Killing a zombie and finding a little girl who seems to be her daughter, Alice finds out that the cloning tech that Umbrella has used against her is now being used to make limitless clones for the company's simulations. Wanting to save Becky from the Red Queen, Alice decides that her daughter will get a better life in the outside world. But before she is able to leave the house, her former strike team from the first Hive shows up and now she is forced to kill her dead friends.

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Meanwhile, on the other side of the simulation floor, the extraction team has run into a problem of their own since the Red Queen is sending everything that she has at them. Being assisted by Alice during their escape, their plan will finally be put into motion and getting back to the surface is their number one priority. But Alice is more human than weapon now and even though they have been directed to get her out at any cost, she is merely a woman who has not lost her feelings about other survivors. Getting hacked by the Red Queen and being forced to make the hard decisions, the group is able to make their way back to the surface, but the fight does not end when you leave the Hive, the arena just gets bigger. 

I see what the filmmakers were trying to do with the storyline in the fifth installment of Resident Evil and while it was a decent attempt, it did not do it for me. But the action in this movie trumps every other entry in the franchise and with countless zombie kills, I am still blown away by one thing, a chainsaw kill that made me cheer. Trying to invoke more emotion out of Alice by having her kill her former friends is a little too much of a stretch for me and while the idea that she had an alternate family with Carlos was cute and all, it was not enough to change who she really was. It seems like having a child would change how she acts, but overall, it was just the same Alice that has been fighting for the survivors all along. I also liked seeing Luther West make a cameo in this movie since he was fun and full of jokes in the last movie he appeared in, so that added some levity and Luther is as kick ass as ever. 

It will be interesting to see where the story goes in The Final Chapter. To be honest, when I started writing these, I had no idea that there was another movie coming out so soon, but here it is. Just looking at what notes are on IMDB, I can see that Raccoon City is back in the mix once again, but I am unsure about how Umbrella will be involved as the baddies this time around, since it is the Red Queen who is looking to end the world and not the other way around. But you know what, it only takes one magical line in the script for the storyline makes sense so I am hoping that it is delivered with some feeling. All I am really hoping for with this new movie is that it gives us some of the greatest zombie kills we have ever seen in the series and something that ties the series back to where it began and why Alice is the only one who can contain the virus and either destroy or save the world. Stay Scared.

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